Cartoons on the Bay 2012 that was held from March 22nd to 25th had honored India as the guest country. The 16th Edition of the Festival took place in Rapallo, Santa Margherita Ligure and Portofino, Italy. The main theme of the year was Sport in cartoons to celebrate 2012 London Olympic Games.
The first day of work was devoted to a series of meetings in which the major animation companies attended and there was also a retrospective of the best products of featured and animated films in recent years.
As India was the guest country at the prestigious festival, 6 Indian studios were invited to attend the festival and had meetings with the other content creators and broadcasters from around the globe. The 6 Indian studios that attended Cartoons on the Bay include- Shemaroo Entertainment, Toonz Entertainment, Eeksaurus Production, Animagic India, SideFX Entertainment and Transcendal Animazion.
 Talking to AnimationXpress.com about his experience Vijay Bhanushali, Sr. Manager – Animation, Shemaroo Entertainment shared, “We were invited to attend Cartoons on the Bay and our animation film “Super K” was screened at the festival. It was a great experience seeing our film being appreciated in Italy. It was wonderful meeting different industry players and exchanging ideas with them. It was an honour to represent India and be a part of this forum”.
According to Vijay, a platform like Cartoons on the Bay provides an opportunity to various industry players across the globe to meet, exchange ideas, do networking and share insights into our mutual industries. Also the sessions that took place were very informative as it discussed how the various channels work particularly in Italy and their requirements. Talking about the meetings Vijay asserted, “The meetings were good. We discussed a lot of up-coming projects for co-production opportunities and have also been offered a number of projects for our consideration but all of them are in initial stage of discussion. It will be too early to comment on any of them now. We are in process of evaluating these proposals. It is difficult to say something until we reach a level of working on it”. |
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 Hari Varma, Chief Creative Officer, Toonz Animation said, “Attending Cartoons on the Bay was a great experience. COB organizer’s gesture of doing an India Day was worth commenting. The Rapallo ambience is amazing. We could feel a strong Indian presence in the festival. And also Italy has some wonderful Bays!”
“The festival had organized meetings of Indian studios with other studios of the world. As far as Toonz is concerned there were some meaningful meetings and the same is being followed up at Cannes MIPTV. Expect to have some fruitful associations with regard to coproduction. Discussions are on and are being continued at Cannes”, Hari Varma added. |
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 E. Suresh, Founder and Director, Studio Eeksaurus, made a 15 minute presentation on the company, emphasizing on the design driven aspect of their work. About the experience Suresh said, “Our experience being a part of the guest country and being recognized as one of the eminent studios from India doing path-breaking work was indeed an honor. It was also heartening to watch the other 5 studios also present their work and realize how as a nation, we are collectively making a global impact in the world of animation”.
“We had an overwhelming number of meetings, especially after our presentation where it was wonderful to learn that a lot of companies insisted on meeting us after they saw a glimpse of our work. Our meetings were generic, more to understand the nature of the work the Italians are doing, the co-productions they are seeking and their financial strategies. Besides, associating a face with the body of work in our virtual world of living and doing business added a nice touch to all of these meetings. There have been some promising discussions which as a producer of the company, I hope will materialize in the near future”, Suresh Eriyat added. |
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 Amit Rathor, Co-founder, Side FX Entertainment shared, “As a guest country we were provided with lot of support from the event management team. We had an opportunity to talk about our country and our Studio. As SideFX we shared information about India as a country, Animation landscape in India as well as presented the details about our studio. The audiences were shown clips of our work and it was very well received”.
“SideFX had meeting with various studios and most of them were from Italy. We are already working with one of the top producers of Italy and we showcased work done by our studio for “Hey Krishna” and “The Extraordinary adventures of Jules Verne”. Both of these were very well received and the studios were very amazed and happy about the quality of animation delivered by SideFX. We are discussing one collaboration and three deals with the various studios we met during the event. The studios there were very keen to work with us and we believe that we will close most of the deals we are discussing”, Amit Rathor asserted. |
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 Chetan Sharma, Founder, Animagic India sharing his experience said, “I feel that the representation was eye opener to many in the audience as it shifted their perception of India from being not just a growing producer of animated content but also a creator of unique films that was of international standard. So far western producers are used to seeing themselves as originating the design and story. It was definitely a privilege to present Animagic’s contribution to Indian Animation in this light. It was very exciting to see the wide range of works that India was able to produce. Felt very proud!”
About the meetings Chetan Sharma added, “The meetings were primarily with Italian studios looking to collaborate with Indian studios and I think a lot of synergy was discovered. Many were pleasantly surprised with the stuff we had done for Tripura, Maa-a-a-a and Raju& I… we felt distinctly a creative kinship with each other. We discovered them as much as they discovered us! Its too early to say where all this will lead, but I think an important step of laying a foundation of friendship and respect has been carried out”. |
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| Transcendal Animazion has showcased the studio reel. Talking about the experience at COB,Prerit Damani, Director, Transcendal Animazion said, “It felt good to be a part of the 6 studios representing India on the foreign land. The event was well organized and lot of support was provided to us. Also the opportunity to meet and interact with the global industry professionals was great. We really appreciate it!”
“There were professionals from different studios and companies from different countries that we have been given an opportunity to interact with. It is a good beginning. It was nice to meet people who have plans and want to materialize them. We are really happy about the exposure that we received”. |
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In 2011, India has about a thousand films produced or co-produced and offered to the public over five hundred TV channels. Between cinema, television and new media India did a business of 11 billion USD for the year that just ended. India excels indisputably both in technology and creativity. Hence Cartoons on the Bay decided to have this beautiful Asian country as its Guest Country in 2012 edition with a series of meetings with leading companies in the industry and a retrospective of feature films and shorts of recent production.
Cartoons on the Bay, celebrating it’s 16th edition is a promising festival in Italy in association with RAI, the big name among Italian broadcasters and through this festival the Italians are ensuring that they are opening up to the world and creating awareness among their people about local and global animation trends.